Site wide search capabilities in enterprise products are often not utilized because of the inability to focus on the data needs of the user. Often the global search functionality is so broad that all available content is searched. Consequently, the search results can include many undesirable items. One solution is to provide a set of search scopes that a user can employ to focus the search on a desired set of content repositories. Although helpful, these search scopes are often fixed in number and are static across the organizational user base. Static scopes often utilize content sources that regularly fail to satisfy the user's needs. Another solution allows each user to define user-specific search scopes. The definition of search scopes, however, requires thorough knowledge of the content domain and can require a significant investment of time for each user in the organization.
In an example based on a large corporate organization, a software engineer in one division (Division A) of the organization desiring to search across all technical documentation and discussion related to the engineer's product (Product A) prefers a search scope referred to as “Product A—Technical Documentation and Discussions.” A second software engineer in a different division (Division B) searches for the same type of information but relevant to a different product (Product B) for which the engineer is responsible. The second software engineer prefers a search scope referred to as “Division B—Technical Documentation and Discussions.” Each search scope allows access to a set of content repositories such as Teamspaces, Webconferences, Custom Applications, and technical web sites. Some of the repositories may be available to both software engineers. Statically defining these search scopes and others that meet the needs of the different user bases can result in an unmanageable number of search scopes that all users need to review before locating the preferred search scope. Conversely, each detailed search scope has particularly great value to a select group of users. Further complexity arises in defining a single search scope that meets the needs of an entire organization. For example, a search scope labeled “Technical Documents” can have multiple meanings to different user groups.
Current commercially-available products provide a variety of ways in which a user can define and use search scopes. For example, Lotus Workplace™ provides selectable “tabs” across the top of a global search portlet. Each tab depicts a type of content repository such as Teamspaces, Web Conferences, Applications and the like. Selecting one of the tabs enables a user to configure the search scope to access a particular set of content repositories of the type associated with the tab. Fore example, selecting the Teamspaces tab allows the user to specify whether the search utilizes all teamspaces, or whether the search is limited to public teamspaces or “favorite” teamspaces. Disadvantages to this solution include the poor division of content and the fixed set of available search scopes. Users are often unable to search for topics that span multiple content repositories without performing multiple searches. In addition, the types of search scopes are fixed across the entire organization and do not vary according to a user's role in the organization.
In another example, Microsoft Sharepoint™ also provides a global search capability. A site administrator can define any number of search scopes containing the desired set of topics and content repositories. This feature enables the administrator to create search scopes that contain information on a topic that may span multiple content repositories or repository types. All defined search scopes are visible to all users in the organization. Finance employees can see search scopes defining technical content and engineers can see search scopes defining financial content. Consequently, a user sorts through an excessive number of search scopes before finding a satisfactory search scope for the desired content. Furthermore, a single search scope can have different meanings throughout the organization, however, the search scope contains only one set of content repositories for all users. The effectiveness of the search is less than desired because the search results include content that is not directly applicable to the user. Moreover, the definitions of search scopes implemented in the Sharepoint application are limited to the site administrator. To create effective search scopes, the site administrator needs to acquire knowledge of all the different user requirements and content domains for the entire organization.
Public Search sites such as Google™ provide the ability to limit search results on certain characteristics such as language, site, location, and format. The available predefined constraints are the same for the entire user base. Google and other public sites lack the knowledge of user communities that can exist in a large organization. Intranets associated with large organizations allow for searching similar to that permitted by public search sites; however, intranets can also benefit from the knowledge associated with groups within the organization. Some intranets maintain a list of static search scopes for user selection to customize a search portlet. The selected search scopes become the user's list of search scopes. Thus the number of times a user sorts through unrelated search scopes is reduced; however, users or user groups still cannot define search scopes that meet their particular needs. In addition, each search scope has a single definition across the entire corporation and does not vary based on a user's role or requirements.
What is needed is a method for a user to perform a search for information that avoids the disadvantages described above and presents the user with more relevant search results. The present invention satisfies this need and provides additional advantages.